Haggis

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT HAGGIS - PAGE 5

Flags of Our Fathers is a somber, painstakingly constructed film about the Battle of Iwo Jima, fought between the United States and Japan early in the final year of World War II. More specifically, it is a heartrending portrait of three of the six men who appeared in the enduringly famous photograph hoisting a flag atop a mountain on the Japanese island. It is a movie about heroism, family, loyalty, love and sacrifice. So it came as something of a surprise when a late-middle-aged couple, redolent with red wine, wormed their way into the seats next to me at the start of a preview screening and promptly proceeded to chatter away.

Something strange is going on with men right now, some compulsion driving them to lay bare their innermost neuroses, insecurities and general immaturity. Recently, Bart Freundlich cast his wife, Julianne Moore, in Trust the Man, a little-seen movie that featured Moore as an actress rather like herself. David Duchovny played her petulant, selfish lout of a husband, but Moore's character was essentially without flaw, almost idealized. A similar aesthetic informs The Last Kiss, a remake of a 2001 Italian film now handled by director Tony Goldwyn and screenwriter Paul Haggis.

Sad, bitter lives meet at the intersection of their racial blind spots in Crash, the directing debut of the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby. Paul Haggis follows his melancholy boxing tale with a literate and unblinking riff on Angelino bigotry, a movie built on a contrived but still moving sermon. There's a car accident late one Los Angeles winter's night. Through an elaborately connected series of flashbacks, we see lives separated and isolated, a city of people who can't relate to one another, largely thanks to the things that crash -- cars.

Theatrical ensemble dramas are hard to pull off. On TV they are a staple -- but on the big screen it's hard to overcome the forest-through-the-trees problem; that is, how to tell a complete story with only a limited time to introduce and involve meaningful characters. In his recent film Crash, which comes to DVD Tuesday ($28.98; rated R), writer-director Paul Haggis not only deals with a large and very talented cast, but also manages to interweave multiple moving stories that deal with race, family, loneliness and the strong influence that strangers have on one another.

FORT LAUDERDALE -- When the Navy stops at Port Everglades, some sailors often have no place to go. But starting in October that won`t be true for the estimated 200,000 sailors who visit Fort Lauderdale each year. The United Services Organization will open a club at the Holiday Inn Oceanside Hotel on the Strip. "The USO becomes a point of contact for these young men. They need us," said Arthur Haggis, chairman of the USO committee that brought the club here. "What will make this USO different from the 154 around the world is that we will be the only one on a beach."

After a series of campy films and a four-year hiatus, James Bond is back. In Casino Royale, the 21st official Bond film, Daniel Craig steps up as the sixth Bond, giving the best portrayal of 007 to date. Craig makes the role his own. His believable interpretation is gritty, down to earth, and vulnerable, while maintaining Bond's classic sharp wit and arrogance. After a black-and-white introduction where Bond earns his first two kills and reaches double-0 status, the classic gun barrel opening sequence begins, and the audience is sold.

Talk about early. It was barely dawn. "Be there at 7:15," said Lewanna Haggis, who chaired the USO`s Armed Forces Week Breakfast. So on May 6, 135 Navy Leaguers and USO supporters got up while it was still dark out and marched, drifted or staggered into Fort Lauderdale`s Tower Club between 7 and 7:30 ayem. ("Wake up, Martha," whispered Lewanna at the door. "Just point me toward the guest of honor and I`ll be all right," I mumbled, yawning.) The speaker and guest of honor was Maj. Gen. Joe Lutz, the army chief of staff in charge of the Special Operations Command.

Crash is about people from different ethnic backgrounds who, as one character says, let their lives crash into one another because they miss the touch so much that they need to feel something. Crash explains how we treat others: as if we are better than others. The only explanation of why we do this is that we get caught up in judging what their race or what their religion is. This movie shows that we treat others poorly because we are unhappy with our own lives. Crash tremendously impacted my life, making me aware of how people will treat each other just because they're different.

It was one of the most patriotic, red-white-and-blue events of Broward`s social season. Star-spangled red-white-and-blue balloons bobbed over the tables, with red- and-blue tapers burning below. And two banners from last month`s bicentennial inauguration balls flanked the bandstand. It was the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge celebration of George Washington`s 257th birthday on Thursday, at the Panorama Ballroom at Pier 66, and no pebble was left unturned. Guests sang the National Anthem.

To some of us the skirl of bagpipes is soothing, heavenly music. To others it grates like fingernails on a blackboard. But a dedicated Scot wouldna gi`e a party without it. That`s why, at Arthur and Lewanna Haggis` bonny Holiday Reception at the Tower Club last week, bagpiper Rob Latimer of the Fort Lauderdale Highlanders, in kiltie and sporran and all, piped arriving guests into the club. From start to finish, the party was as Scottish as a highland fling. Kilted Scots James Russell and Eddie Agnew guarded the entrance.